PUGS IN RUBBER (SOME WHO LIVE IN THE COMPUTER)

Remember the OBSESSIONS post in July?  Remember Guardian had all these scenes she made with not a single pug in them?

Well, she showed us these pictures, which finally have pugs in them.

So, here are some pictures she made with pugs.

Guardian used pencils that wrote in colors to give them pug fur colors.

 

Little Pug: "Play with Me"  Big Pug: "When is the next meal?"

A Boy & His Pugs

Pug Thinks "Can I eat a this fluttery thing?"

What’s weird about these kids and pugs is that they came from the computer!  They weren’t on those wooden blocks or stuck to a clear plastic thingy.


 We never knew pugs & kids could live in a computer.

We really like these next two.

We’re not puppies anymore, but we can still make puppy dog eyes when we want.  Food drives us to take desperate measures!

This was the one that made us believe Guardian was really serious about making pictures with pugs.  The only thing wrong with it is--why not “pug” instead of  “dog”?

OK readers---do you believe that has Guardian finally heard us?

Do you think Guardian should be forgiven for not doing any pug pictures before? 

PUG MEETUP RITUALS

Yeah, we hadn’t been to the pug meetup for ages.  Too hot, too rainy, Guardian too lazy.

Then, for once, all the good things came together--good weather, good health, good energy.   It was off to the meetup.

I looked around to size the place up.

Of course, we had to greet the others in a proper puggie fashion.

And I looked at all the people legs.  Maybe somebody had some treats they would share.  A pug must always be on the alert for dropped morsels.





Gus had to find a chair leg to pee on.

                                           I was kept on leash, while Gus got to wander free.

People get all excited when I try to hug Gus.   I'm a girl, remember, so why do they get all giggly when I hug him?

 Really, they’re just hugs.  Pick up your mind, people!   So what if that’s all I do while off leash when we visit anywhere? 

Oh, all right, I’ll ‘fess up. I’m trying to be TOP PUG, and I have to do that in front of people who may think I’m not.  I have to get the message out somehow.  Don't people need lots of reminders? 

Then we started to get sleepy.

And even sleepier....

Time to go!  But we'll be back!

                                           

LIVING STRONG

Jazz                                             Gus

Gus here.  So not too long ago, when the weather was hotter, we were at a place we remember from before. Guardian called it the “Philly Livestrong Challenge” Village.  It was in a big grassy field next to some buildings, surrounded by huge paved areas with lots of cars. Guardian said it was some sort of college.  We knew it was going to be a different day when Guardian put our Therapy Dog jackets on.  In fact, it was going to be two special days, like it was last year and the year before. We were volunteers, and we were told to be serious about it.  Well, we're pugs, so, really, how serious can they expect us to be?


Guardian said people were walking and running and riding bicycles to get money for the something called the  "Livestrong Foundation."  They help people with a bad disease called cancer.  Guardian knows about that disease up close and personal.

This guy had ridden lots of miles...

...and this is where he finished

We met a girl who rode a bicycle that was missing a wheel.  Her Dad had died of cancer when she was a baby.  Today she’s 9, and she and her family came all the way from the middle of the United States to run or walk or cycle to raise money.  Her mom told us they have come every year to this Challenge.  This is the 6th year it’s been here. (If the video doesn't play, go to the link.)
http://youtu.be/rdn4pSYCRk8

Everywhere we went, people came over to pet us and tell us about their dogs. We did our tricks, and people laughed and laughed.    

There’s something about hope in laughter.

This was a team of people with orange shirts who loved seeing our tricks.
There were lots of other teams, but nobody else with those cool orange shirts.

Yep, it was a special two days. But we had a challenge to meet, too.

 Since we couldn’t raise money, we aimed to raise smiles. Our challenge was to leave the Philly Livestrong Challenge Village with more smiles than before we came.

You look at the photos and tell us... did we meet our challenge?

WHERE DID THE DEVIL GO?

So Guardian said we were going to see that Devil Tongue plant again...you know that weird plant we showed you back in April.

From April 25, 2012 post

We were sort of afraid that the plant had gotten really, really hungry since we first saw it and maybe Guardian was going to allow it to nibble on us.  Maybe we did something wrong and....well, you know how humans can sometimes be when they think you've been messing with them.

So, we followed her over to Jake’s house, sort of nervously.  When we got there, we started looking for the Devil’s Tongue.

But we couldn’t find it.














So where'd it go?

Then she pointed to this bunch of leaves on a spotted stick.

THIS is that Devil’s Tongue!?!?!?  Nah, couldn’t be!  But Jake has lived with this plant for years, and he assures us this is what the plant looks like after that creepy “flower” dies. Then Guardian found this on the big cyber spider web.

http://www.exoticrainforest.com/Amorphophallus%20konjac%20pc.html

She figured somebody might not believe what they see here. She said that its real name is Amorphophallus konjac. 
Common names:  Voodoo Lily,  Snake Plant, Dragon Plant
Sometimes known as:  Devil's Tongue, Snake Palm, Konnyaku, Pinyin, Konjaku, and  Elephant Yam

So, anybody read about that plant?  Do you believe us now?  Just for the record, I think she's messing with us.

FOOD DYE

Well, I’ve been outed.  Let me explain.

You know how my face is getting grayer and grayer.  Yeah, I’ve got plenty of spring in my legs and good attack maneuvers when Gus and I tussle.  I can jump pretty high and stand up on my back legs if there’s a treat involved.  And I run fast when I need to.  I do enjoy soft places to snuggle and sleep, for sure, but I am just resting to gather energy for my next ball chasing or Gus beating.

So when I saw myself on our last blog entry, I couldn’t understand who that gray-faced dog was sitting next to Gus.  Then it hit me—it was ME!!! Whew….this cannot be ME, I thought!!

Who is that gray faced creature?

So I worked out this scheme to turn my gray a darker color by mushing my face into my food bowl.  It knew it was working when I heard someone say to Guardian how brown my face was looking.

Then Guardian decided to wash my face.  She kept licking it and licking it with some white cloth thing. And the more the cloth licked, the browner it became.  She made these ugly noises and wrinkled up her face. Maybe she was trying to pretend she was a pug!  It didn't work.  She's as human as ever (or maybe IN-human?).

See?  This is how brown my face could be from the food dye

And now she uses those cloths to lick my face almost every day.

But I’ve got the last growl….my food mushing has worked.  My face has some brown that simply won’t lick off.  Hah!  

GLASSY JAZZ

So I didn’t know Guardian was sending out photos of me to Stratoz, one our blog followers.  He and his wife, Margaret, are really good with making little bits of things into pictures.  And, well, Guardian decided she wanted one of those bit pictures to be of me! The little bits in my picture are really bigger bits of glass, so I’m told.  And that sign that says “Nutmeg Designs” is where Stratoz and Margaret show their other little, medium and big bit pictures.

Guardian was so happy to see it.  My eyes don’t see as well as they used to, but even I liked it!  That’s supposed to be a red background.  If I could see colors, red would be my favorite.

Stratoz (glass bit picture creator), Me, Gus and bit pictures--including the one of MY face! See? It really does look like me!

 

So, here are Gus and me and Stratoz in front of some of the other pictures made of little bits, the ones Margaret made. You know about my Christmas present—that’s my name.  Then there are the two little bit designs by Margaret.  Guardian told me one was a "healing mandala"—she needed that at one time when she was sick, and when I was much younger. I guess it worked, 'cuz she seems healthy now.  And the other, she said, is a “trivet,” whatever that is.

I told Guardian to let people know where they can look at more at these little, medium and big bit pictures.  They even have those things people (women, mostly) wear around their necks.  They don’t have any more pugs, but I’m sure Stratoz would be happy to make one of your pug, too!  Or whatever picture you wanted with all sorts of great colors that I can’t see, but your eyes can!

http://www.etsy.com/shop/nutmegdesigns?page=1

OBSESSIONS

So, Gus and I are obsessed with food.  We live for our next meal and other eatable things.  We are obsessed about going out on walks because we get little various treats (like dried duck breast; beef, turkey, and lamb jerky just for dogs; dried beef liver bits, etc.), all of them legal for Gus.  (With all of his allergies, you know.)  And we just adore those smells everywhere!

We are also obsessed with bath time and our little ‘Cuz squeaky balls we play with after the bath.

 

We love our Skinneeze, too.  Sort of an obsession, but not all the time.

But our Guardian is obsessed with something totally strange.  She calls it “Artistic Rubber Stamping.”  She spends DAYS in the basement, hunched over a table, moving around wooden and other blocks with a rubbery thing on them, smacking them on some kind of thing first to color the rubber, then pressing them on paper. She sometimes forgets to take us out and....and she forgets to eat.  That's just WRONG!

She also sits at a computer for hours taking what she says are classes to learn how to do this better. How you do this on a computer is puzzling.  (Humans are SO puzzling anyway!)   

She has these special coloring sticks.  She says they’re “Kohpix” or something like that.  She ought to have one of those college degrees, with all the classes she’s taken on stamping.  She keeps filling up the house with her “art works,” putting them on furniture, clipping them to this white board thing-y on the wall…and so on.

So, here are some of the pictures she’s made. I don’t know why she doesn’t have any pugs in them, though.  And she SO ignores us while she's making them.

She assures us she’ll get around to a pug picture, too. Hah!  won't believe it 'til I see it!

Not a single pug here. Except me, Gus. And the thing that works the lights, too. See it? Me neither. But Guardian swears it's there.